Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Vendor Assistant
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Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Vendor Assistant

The WIC Vendor Assistant (VA) serves as the primary point of contact and information distribution center for all new and authorized vendors in Pennsylvania. Each functional area of the site has been designed with the vendor’s needs in mind. VA has been in production since July 2006 and the feedback from vendors has been overwhelmingly positive. Versions of the VA are being implementing in Wisconsin and Louisiana WIC Agencies in 2010.

WIC Vendor Assistant Features

The site is secured by individually assigned user IDs and strong passwords so that each vendor can only view information applicable to their store. For vendors new to WIC, there are links to pages that describe the specific minimum criteria that a store must meet for qualification as a WIC Vendor and an online application process that allows the vendor to enter all of the necessary information to request program enrollment. Once submitted, the application is tracked throughout the approval and site inspection process thereby eliminating much of the paperwork and delay in the current process.

The Home page functions as the news distribution center. This page contains important announcements; a quick links section to enable quick access to the most frequently used areas of the site; a vendor resources area for links useful to vendors; and vendor alerts. Vendor alerts contain important information on WIC legislative changes, authorized food list updates, or other information related to vendor program participation. Contact information, the PA WIC privacy policy, and vendor frequently asked questions can also be found on this page.

An important consideration in the design was the ability for large chains to view their individual stores or run aggregate reports for all stores within their organization. VA accomplishes this by incorporating a My Stores page that enables management of the chain to select individual stores to view their rejects, sanctions, or modify various contact information. If the user signed on is a representative of a single store, the My Stores page is not visible and the user will only have access to their own data. Once a store is selected, all information pertaining to that location is available. A vendor can access reports specific to their stores and update store specific information such as contact information or mailing address within this page.

The WIC Vendor Assistant also has the capability to collect vendor food price data through the automated Vendor Price Survey form found on the My Stores page. The automated vendor price survey represents a major improvement to the previously existing manual survey process and greatly streamlines the cost collection process used for determining vendor tier pricing. No longer does the WIC Program Office vendor staff need to hand enter each price survey received. Instead the effort is shifted to the vendors allowing the program office staff to concentrate on other aspects of collecting price information and other duties. Vendors can enter price survey data for their store, or if they are a chain, can enter the data for any one of their individual stores. Large vendor chains may select one or many of their individual stores to enter price information or they may require each of their individual stores to enter the price information themselves. Price surveys are available semi-annually and the data collection timeframe is controlled through VA parameters. Once the data collection period ends, price survey data is summarized and formatted for analysis.

The Resources page is a distribution point for vendors to receive important information and materials related to participation in the program. This page contains USDA and Commonwealth vendor regulations, links to proposed USDA vendor regulations, vendor procedure manuals, maximum allowable prices, minimum inventory requirements, and other information previously distributed in paper format.

A major use for VA is the distribution of the Automated Vendor Reporting (AVR) specifications and software. AVR replaces the inefficient and fraud prone vendor stamping of WIC checks which are subsequently keyed at the bank resulting in higher processing fees.  For EBT, planning documentation such as presentations, specifications, and qualification criteria can be disseminated.  Once EBT is implemented, the framework exists for claim tracking, reconciliation, and other EBT reporting allowing vendors to solve many of the common issues internally therefore reducing help desk call volume.   These items are also located on the Resources page.

The Training page lists all upcoming training events, permits online registration, and contains agendas and other training materials posted by the Local Agency Retail Store Coordinators (RSC). In Pennsylvania, the RSCs perform the majority of the vendor review and training tasks. VA provides an efficient information distribution mechanism for them. Site administrators have the ability to modify training events, links, news, and other aspects of site maintenance from the Admin page.



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